>>Does this mean traders should sell out the Moon Mage Guild?

It means the Traders Guild is currently in negotiation with an immensely powerful extraplanar entity who's entire being is bent toward the death of Moon Mages. Albeit the Arbiter uses much more elegant methods on the average than, say, the Servant of Fate (who just murders people that it comes across).

What this practically leads to depends entirely on how this shakes out. Nobody's ever tried to draft a contract with an alien god before.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

> Nobody's ever tried to draft a contract with an alien god before.

Nobody? Ever?

Or is the key point here the inclusion of a notary?

> Dormammu, I've come to bargain.

I laughed out loud.

In before traders ask the eye of agamoto. Although, putting the entire realms in an endless time loop for the trader's fun and practice has a certain appeal >: )

> Nobody's ever tried to draft a contract with an alien god before.

> I never really thought of using a monkey's paw as entering a contract with it, but I grant I can see it now.

Isn't that what cleric communes do, maybe the cleric high-sorceries, or necros depending on your perspective of demons. I guess "alien" might be the quantifier here, but how alien are we talking about? I'm both confused and intrigued by where this going.

>Isn't that what cleric communes do, maybe the cleric high-sorceries, or necros depending on your perspective of demons. I guess "alien" might be the quantifier here, but how alien are we talking about? I'm both confused and intrigued by where this going.

I hope I have this right, but,

A ) This is the foundation of Holy Magic.
B ) The only thing differentiating the Immortals, the Arbiter, and demons is where they come from (and what they call themselves).
C ) MMMHMMMMM.

> The line was poorly explained on my part, since I was going for punchy over descriptive. My intention for saying "a contract" was to imply a formal, notarized, written out multi-page signed by multiple witnesses sort of thing. There have absolutely been deals and bargains struck with extraplanars (and even the Arbiter itself in the past) before.

Got it. I don't know how this is going to play out, but it would be amazing if we could get one of those skill scrolls added to the guild that only allowed signing your name once. When this culminates, and magic is made available, all of the traders present can "sign" the contract to have their name memorialized.

If that's too much, then every trader that attends these events should get a special ledger representing their agreeements. Maybe an alteration session where they RP signing the contract and the being gives them a parting gift (custom alteration on their ledger - being decides what with a little input like the fae) or even a custom look for the trader themselves (touched by starlight or faint shimmering ...) or something to remind them of the deals they made.

>The concepts from the Plane of Probability are, well, concepts. They're pretty tightly bound to mortal thought and things that are important to Lunar magical practice, for unknown reasons. In capacity for thought and growth they're more like magical computer programs than people -- some of them are just very, very complex programs.

I very eagerly await seeing if errors in the contract produce catastrophe, a la Long Price Quartet.

Maybe getting off topic, but in terms of the chicken-and-egg question regarding the Immortals and their respective constellations, will we see this expanded further with Plane of Probability Concepts? Maybe inklings of what things were like before proto-Moonies influenced things?

> The true deities are related strongly to the concepts of creation and cosmological law. According to legend, they created and have lawful dominion over the Plane of Abiding.

> The true demons are related strongly to the concepts of destruction and entropy. They eat.

Interesting, so does that mean the immortals are more powerful than the demons? How would the planar aspects fit on that chart? What about the other dieties that the clerics can worship with their sorcery spell?

"magic will not be necessary for Traders to circle,"

Armifer does this mean traders will see no magic skill grandfathering like barbarians did with their roll-out?

So if magic is going to be optional, what is the other option?

---

“I’m sorry that your mystical, godlike powers do not instantly work as you would like them to.”

> It's not a great option, but it's there for those who said they didn't want to be forced into Trader Magic. You can Trader without magic if you want.

Mechanically, no one is going to want to choose that option.

Will there be a thematic reason not to do it? Should there be?

>>Will there be a thematic reason not to do it? Should there be?

Not really. But early on it was a repeatedly voiced concern, and since we already have a few guilds that can ignore a tertiary skillset or two in circle reqs, it doesn't seem like a big sin that Traders be given the ability to ignore Magic for their reqs.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

Any chance we can get magic ranks grandfathered at the rate those skills WOULD have been required as a tert skill set? so folks don't have to backtrain to use speculates etc?

>previously customary grandfathering of magic ranks

There was no previously customary grandfathering of magic ranks for magic tertiaries.

Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self.

Just for the record, I have no horse in this race at the moment, as I actually managed to train enough magics that I doubt I'd get anything from grandfathering. Thank you, teachers and sanowret crystal.

I can see both sides. Some people have been long-term Traders and don't want to have to learn the magic system. Maybe they'd prefer that even with sacrificing the speculates. Others want to train magic and therefore want the free ranks. I should mention though, for any who don't know, the amount they were proposing to grandfather was a pittance, like 1 rank/circle. That was why I chose to learn via teaching instead, as with grandfathering alone I'd never be close to my combat ranks.

Personally, given the very small amount of ranks originally offered to grandfather, I would err on the side of not requiring magic. Let people play how they want to, and how they always have. If it's easy to throw 100-200 ranks at us for free in a few skills, that also wouldn't hurt, but I don't think it's necessary.


- Navesi